Moments
by LadyCat
Summary: In a Book 6 AU, Draco contemplates a moment he doesn't want to understand.


There was this one moment. Draco couldn't quantify it or understand it. He hated it, especially when he realized how much he didn't hate it at all. _What_ it was changed all the time, too. There was never any predictability that he could prepare for. Never a moment when he could steel himself and say _no, this time I won't_.

It was the randomness that really bothered him. He had an image to maintain, dammit. It was difficult to terrorized the first years or plan to bring Gryffindors down to less self-righteous heights when it could happen at any time. It made him lose respect in the eyes of the rest of the school, and power among the Slytherins. He'd already lost enough of both respect and power, lately, what with his father in prison. He didn't need to sabotage _himself_.

There were plenty of others who were willing to do that, for him.

Sighing, Draco didn't rub his forehead. Wrinkles were an enemy his mother fought against every day and she'd gifted her son with this neurosis. It'd been a source of friction between father and son, who didn't appreciate the shallow vanity in his son unless it was cultivated for some purpose, as it was with the father—and wasn't this the most ludicrous thought ever? Worse, it wasn't working. Draco only succeeded in making himself feel worse, remembering his family woes. It did nothing to remove this ... this ...

Ug! There wasn't even a _name_ for it, or if there was, Draco refused to acknowledge it. It simply wasn't possible. Imaginable. Probable. It couldn't be. Giving up on his father's master wasn't that much of an issue in the long run; at least, not among Slytherins: sides were fluid, anyway, since most of them viewed the world as Themselves and Everyone Else. Draco's choices were made as to what was best for Draco. No true Slytherin, as opposed to the mindless thugs who were born to be led, could object to that. The thugs Draco wasn't worried about, either. Vincent and Greg were his.

No, changing allegiance was never an issue. But this? This wasn't just an issue, it was a _problem_. It cut at everything Draco had known about himself and all the private plans he'd made towards his future. It undermined every self-image he'd had, whether they were created for others to believe or if Draco had genuinely been certain of it. And it was still utterly and completely random! It would strike him when he walked to class. When a teacher droned on about things he couldn't be bothered to pay attention to. When his friends spoke and socialized around him. During _Quidditch_, and wasn't that the most humiliating thing ever?

Galling though it was to admit, Draco knew that there were certain ... triggers. Things he did or thought that would inevitably cause the same damned reaction. He tried to avoid them, of course, something he was usually quite good at. Draco had mastered his own mind and body years ago; his father would have nothing less. But now, during lunch, Draco could scream inside his own mind as much as he wanted: still his eyes would wander over to find and meet Potter's.

The flush was immediate, startling against his fair skin. That was bad, but excusable since people were becoming almost used to it. It was the _feeling_ that came along with it that gutted Draco. The warmth and soft, squishy feeling that no Slytherin, no _Malfoy_ had ever felt in the history of the Malfoy family. It wasn't an overwhelming need to stare simperingly at Potter until his features were memorized; Draco had done the memorization part back in first year, when he'd hated the git. Something he still did now. It wasn't a bid for Potter's attention, because he'd _always_ had that. It wasn't mere attraction, either, because Draco had long ago come to terms with his own deviant desires. That was fine. He would handle that the way gay Malfoys had handled that for generations, and indulge his own whims as life permitted. That was all well and good. Rational. Compartmentable, for lack of a real word.

No, the problem wasn't that he wanted Potter, both physically and in a way he refused to really think about. It wasn't even that he wanted Potter to want him back—that was a slight bit of weakness on his part, but a true Malfoy would have gone through a variety of methods to ensure that Potter _did_ want him back. Some were more legal and morally acceptable than others, of course, but that, too, was something Draco could plan for and deal with.

This was something else.

It was how much Draco wanted Harry to _take_. To shove him into an empty, dusty classroom and do whatever he liked to Draco. The rough stone hard against his shoulder blades, the way Potter's eyes glinted as he pushed Draco down to his knees, his back, his belly. The half-smile that Draco knew was his alone, because it said _mine_ more clearly than the gasped out utterance Harry moaned when he made Draco come, or came himself. It was the way Draco wanted to say 'yes' to any request Potter had, _simply because it would make Potter happy_ and that, in turn, made Draco happy. It was how much Draco wanted to be over there, by Potter's side, just in case Potter needed him for something: a shared laugh, a shared fuck, a shared heartbreak.

Across the hall, Potter met his eyes for a half second. There was a promise and a smile in those green depths, but it wasn't either of those things that made Draco shiver and be thankful they all worse loose robes. It was because each time, Draco knew without a doubt that every time Potter said _mine_, Draco said _yes_ and _yours_.


End file.
